


The Night of Four Billion Years

by MarsDragon



Category: Akumajou Dracula: Castlevania | Castlevania: Lament of Innocence
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-05
Updated: 2006-07-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 08:26:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarsDragon/pseuds/MarsDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not that easy, dying and still moving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Night of Four Billion Years

The bat-body was confusingly small and awkward to handle and Mathias flapped and veered desperately, trying to keep in the air. Damned if he'd fall before Leon in this state, but oh Go- oh, he was half blind but somehow this body knew how to find a gap in the stone walls and he was outside, wind echoing oddly loud in his ears and the constant nearly panicked sensation of falling his only obstacle. The body seemed to have an idea of what it was doing, and though it was difficult, the new vampire managed to step back and let the lower bird-mind handle the flying.

But dawn was coming and before then he had to make it below the trees for cover. It was easy enough to nudge the bat downwards, gliding until he could hear and feel the tips of trees rushing past. Now the branches were closer and he had to be careful, sliding through the branches and - but he couldn't remember how wings worked if he even knew in the first place and somehow the very tips of his wings caught on a branch and he tried to grab onto it with the remnants of human instinct, which only let another, larger one hit him right in the head and then he was human again and to his considerable consternation, couldn't fly anymore.

Luckily the branches that had knocked him out of the sky also helped to break his fall, but Mathias ended up on the forest floor, dazed, aching, and not inclined to stand up. Nothing seemed broken, and eventually he managed to push himself up against a tree and take stock of the situation. His clothes had taken, well, a bit of beating, but they were still wearable enough, the distinct and painful ache in his arm had begun to fade fast enough to lend credence to the tales of vampires being able to heal themselves of minor injuries, though it might have been only Walter's powers, and even with the Ebony's Stone power gone the sunlight could barely break through the thick foliage above him. It wouldn't take long for Death to find him and then they could...leave, he supposed. Mathias frowned, realizing how little he had planned for what he would do after becoming a vampire. Of course, he was supposed to have Leon by his side, but even still. It was a serious omission in his plot, he had to admit.

All that could wait for the moment while he waited for Death to finish with Leon. He'd make it to the nearest town, well, second-nearest, as Rinaldo (and Leon, if he lived) would likely be in the nearest, rest, and make the rest of his plans after a good night's - day's, he corrected, laughing a little, day's sleep. He leaned back against the trunk of the tree and settled in to relax for a bit. The hard part was over now and there was nothing more to worry about.

But...

Something itched at the back of his mind, a growing uneasiness about what was happening. The newly born vampire couldn't quite place a finger on it, it certainly didn't exist for any logical reason, but it was there nevertheless. Something was wrong. It wasn't the forest itself, though it was still too silent and cold for a real forest that was only to be expected after having been the site of the Eternal Night for so long, it wasn't the Stone sleeping peacefully on his chest, though he brushed his hands over it fitfully, it couldn't be him, though he was beginning to feel tired that was to be expected of a vampire and he had been up all night ransacking Walter's library behind the old vampire's back. It wasn't anything he could think of, but it was there all the same - and starting to grow into a real fear.

Mathias shoved it down with cold efficiency born from years as a knight and alchemist. Panic did no good. If reason and logic could not find the source of his discomfort, he simply wasn't looking hard enough. Was he upset at the idea of losing his best friend? No, that couldn't be it. He had half-counted on Leon refusing and had made the necessary preparations in his mind beforehand. Leon was dead to him now, and the idea brought no sense of mourning. It couldn't be that. Perhaps his betrayal of Elisabetha by playing along with Walter in bed was the cause? The thought brought sadness and shame, but not this ever growing fear that clawed at his spine and made him sick.

Mathias cursed softly and twisted his hands together, hoping the bit of pain would help him focus only to quickly jerk them apart in shock. His hands were dead cold. Of course, it was to be expected, Walter had been cold as well, but there was something basic and wrong about pressing his hands to his neck and feeling neither heat nor heartbeat. Something in the back of his mind, too old for words, screamed at the touch and the wrong and he did his damnest to shove it down again. It was to be expected, it was what he had _wanted_ , there was nothing to fear here.

But the shadows in his mind just wouldn't listen, voices that weren't even letting him think by taking direct action in his body, trying to gasp for air even as his lungs protested they didn't need it anymore, they were dead and so was he, but still thinking and why couldn't those cowardly things that hid in the dark understand that? The antediluvian whispers just kept crying out and he thought there was something about trees in the heat, and dark cool oceans, and something old and what he was now was wrong on all of those half-understood levels.

His thoughts were running wild, he realized. He needed to bring them to heel. The man - vampire, pressed his hands to his ears, trying to block out the odd rushing sound in them that might have been half his imagination anyway. The shadows still clawed at him, freezing his body and blood that was already cold and even as he protested his small voice of rational thought was lost in the darkness, overtaken by many somethings, desperate and fearful and _old_.

Unthinking, Mathias threw back his head, one of the few bits of light that managed to get through the trees hitting him in the eye though he did not see it, staring as he was into the night of four billion years.


End file.
